Image Credit: AP

Slash, Tom Petty, Bill Wyman, and Booker T. Jones have all paid tribute to legendary bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, who passed away yesterday in Tokyo at the age of 70.

Slash wrote in a tweet that Dunn “was one of the greatest side & session, blues, R&B, Soul bassists of all time”; Petty tweeted that the Stax Records mainstay “will be dearly missed”; and a message on Wyman’s website described how the ex-Rolling Stones member was “saddened to hear of his friend’s passing, and Bill and Donald both were in touch daily. Bill has known Donald since the 1970s, and had been emailing Donald the day before his death.”

Finally, Dunn’s longtime collaborator Booker T. Jones has published a lengthy tribute to the Booker T. and the MGs bassist on his website, in which he says that he “can’t imagine not being able to hear Duck laugh and curse.”

You can read the full statement below. READ FULL STORY »

Image Credit: The Hearald/AP

Trammps singer Jimmy Ellis died yesterday at a nursing home in South Carolina, according to CNN. He was 74.

The Philadelphia-based Trammps became dancefloor icons in 1977 with their classic track “Disco Inferno,” which was featured on the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. The Trammps’ other hits included “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” and “Disco Party.”

Ellis grew up in Rock Hill, NC. At the age of 7, his father died and Ellis helped care for his five younger siblings, picking cotton and cutting grass to augment the family income, before striking north to make his way in the music business. “We weren’t making any money until “Disco Inferno” came along,” he once told the Charlotte Observer. “That’s when I started jumping, ‘Yes!’”

You can hear their biggest hit below: READ FULL STORY »